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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



|HAVE FAITH IN COOLIDGElf 



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HAVE FAITH IN 
COOLIDGE! 






BY 

EUGENE M. WEEKS 



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SEAVER-HOWLAND PRESS 

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 

MCMXXIII 



.V1/37 



COPYRIGHT, 1913 

By SEA VER-HOW LAND PRESS 

BOSTON, MASS. 



OCT -1 

1A753223 




T is the belief of his New England 
associates and fellow citizens 
that Calvin Coolidge possesses 
the qualities of true American 
statesmanship . It is appropriate that this 
conviction and some of the facts that have 
created it should at this time be set forth. 

Therefore, this personal sketch of him is 
offered in appreciation of the man himself 
and of his fitness for the great responsibil- 
ities to ivhich circumstances have so unex- 
pectedly called him. 

GERALD SHEPARD HOWLAND 

Boston, Massachusetts 
August 2.4, 192.3 






HAVE FAITH IN COOLIDGE! 



The Story of a Personality 




arly one night not long ago, a lean-faced 
man, fatigued by several hours of hay- 
pitching, undressed by the feeble light 
of a kerosene lamp and went to bed in an 
old farmhouse up in Vermont. 
In the dead of night a lamp's light shining in his 
face, and his name tremblingly uttered, awakened 
him to the leadership of the most powerful govern- 
ment in the world. 

Two hours later, in the presence of his wife and a 
handful of hastily-assembled acquaintances, and by 
the light of more oil lamps, he was duly and securely 
sworn into the office of President of the United States. 
A local justice of the peace, who happened to be his 
father, administered the oath. 

Then the tired hay-pitcher went back to bed! 
The faint rays of those kerosene lamps shining in 
the old Vermont farmhouse that historic night re- 
vealed a new Calvin Coolidge. Their light seems like- 
ly to have started a great illumination of this man 
that will presently shine 'round the globe. 

1 9 1 



HAVE FAITH IN COOLIDGE! 



Calm In a Great Moment 

American history holds no more picturesque and 
fascinating episode than the falling of the presiden- 
tial mantle upon Calvin Coolidge. 

It came simultaneously with and as a part of an 
overwhelming national sorrow. The public mourns 
as almost never before; but it has found time, even 
in its grief, to be electrified by the suddenly-discov- 
ered personality of him who awoke under the eaves 
of the Vermont farmhouse that August midnight to 
blink his eyes for a moment in the dull glow of an 
oil lamp and hear himself named the personal leader 
of more than a hundred million citizens. 



His acts of the succeeding few hours denoted the 
simple orderliness of his clear mind. To the few 
gathered about him he revealed, first, deepest emo- 
tion at the passing of his friend and leader. He sent 
a message of consolation to the stunned helpmate of 
the great man whose weary body had released its 
spirit. He obediently followed the advice of the 
momentary heads of the Government and speedily 
took his oath of office— availing himself of the ade- 
quate even if unusual means immediately at his hand. 

He ate a simple farm breakfast. He packed and 
strapped his trunk. He gave the nation a brief, clear, 
encouraging message. He stole away a moment to 
visit his mother's grave. Then he went to the near- 
est railroad station, declined the pomp of a special 

[ io ] 



W HAVE FAITH IN COOLIDGE! m 

m . g$ 

train, and journeyed out of quiet, rural New England 
into an immeasurable responsibility that will claim 
him — who knows how long? 

He went with a calm self-possession that in those 
memorable hours of August third spoke volumes 
of hope to a grief-bowed nation and a bewildered 
capitol. 

Calvin Coolidge's journey to Washington that 
day was in some strange way like the home-coming 
of a strong, able son when death has removed the 
beloved head of the family. 



New England in general and Massachusetts in 
particular may be expected to idolize a bit their na- 
tive son who has under such dramatic conditions 
taken his seat in the big chair at the White House. 
He is the first from New England to do so since 
Franklin Pierce; the first from Massachusetts since 
John Quincy Adams. 

But in it all you will find the paramount New 
England sentiment for and about Coolidge today to 
be this: That the rest of the country shall come 
quite speedily to know what manner of man Calvin 
Coolidge really is, and to grasp the surprising fact 
that his police strike halo and his "Have Faith in 
Massachusetts" speech are only incidental mani- 
festations of a great intelligence and a great char- 
acter eminently sufficient to meet every demand that 
his elevation to supreme authority can make upon 
them. 

[ ii ] 



—. & 

HAVE FAITH IX COOLIDGE! 6 

New England and Massachusetts, fully sharing 
the nation's grief at the untimely passing of Pres- 
ident Harding, are saving to the nation and the 
world: "Keep your eyes on this plain, quiet, de- 
cisive citizen of ours who has had to step into the 
breach. He is a statesman of highest calibre. Have 
faith in Coolidge!" 



Revelations of Personality 

And it is to the American people's decided ad- 
vantage to study the man. The view they had of 
his personality three years ago, when a single of- 
ficial act of his gave him the limelight — and a nom- 
ination — was fleeting and insufficient. His conduct 
of his work at Washington since then was a dutiful 
performance of an almost colorless job — except that 
by a wise chief's wisdom Coolidge "sat in" with 
the mighty and absorbed what he learned. 

Americans at large have yet a great deal to find 
out about this lean-faced, sandy-complexioned, 
twangy-voiced, modest-mannered Yankee who reg- 
isters embarrassing reticence one moment and dis- 
plays whip-like decisiveness the next. 

Most of the people outside New England and 
Washington who have heard of Coolidge have 
doubtless gained a more or less definite impression 
chat he is a silent, gloomy man without a glimmer 
of humor, probably very scholarly, certainly un- 
emotional, notoriously no sportsman and unques- 
tionably dripping with New England conservatism. 



HAVE FAITH IN COOLIDGE! 

E «S 

Now, some of these impressions of him have traces 
of correctness. But some of them haven't. And, 
above it all, the man is intensely human and preem- 
inently a wise leader. 

Many of these citizens of other localities have ha i 
no accurate line on Coolidge's executive abilities. 
Being a governor, settling a policemen's strike the 
right way and writing a speech or two that caught 
the popular fancy have not, to them, constituted 
prima facie evidence of the ability to swing the 
White House. Why should they? Haven't other 
governors of other states sometimes done things, 
too? 

But the more one checks up the busy years of 
Calvin Coolidge's private and public life, the more 
they reveal his unusual fitness for the responsibil- 
ities he assumed in the feeble lamplight in the old 
Vermont farmhouse that morning. 

It is this that his home friends and neighbors de- 
sire to become known far and wide. For, when it 
is known, the good fortune that is supposed to have 
dropped suddenly into the lap of Calvin Coolidge 
will be found to have descended, instead, upon his 
fellow countrymen ! 



"Let's Close the Ranks" 

Even in these first few days of his leadership his 
ability to assume promptly and with complete effi- 
ciency the reins of executive authority is notably 
demonstrated. 

[ 13 1 



HAVE FAITH IN COOLIDGE! 



The oldest inhabitants and observers at the na- 
tional capital are astounded at the ease and self- 
possession with which Calvin Coolidge has sat 
down in the big chair, retained to himself every 
eminent counsellor in the official executive family, 
attacked quietly and determinedly an accumulation 
of major matters sufficient to stagger a less able be- 
ginner — and manipulated them to the dawning ad- 
miration of a nation almost holding its breath. 

His ability to make even this beginning is an 
index of the resources, the long-trained habits of 
correct analysis, of action and of decisiveness con- 
cealed under the mild, modest exterior of Calvin 
Coolidge. 

Men such as the Harding cabinet members, each a 
tower of individualism and each with his own per- 
sonal freedom of action to consider in its relation 
to his future, do not overturn time-honored custom 
and remain with a new in-coming chief unless he 
possesses a remarkable something to hold them. 
Calvin Coolidge has it. It is their confidence in his 
certainty of statesmanship and the successful use 
thereof. Nothing else. 

To them he quietly and feelingly said: "Let's 
close the ranks and go ahead." They did. 

The gentlemen of the press as assembled in Wash- 
ington — nearly two hundred of them — are hard- 
boiled. They have to be. They are shrewd, crit- 
ical, truthful. They have to be that, too. They 
tell the truth about a President — or lose their jobs. 
These newspaper men are very plainly surprised at 

I 14 1 



|f HAVE FAITH IN COOLIDGE! ® 

the facility with which the new President has got 
started in his work. They rise en masse to tell the 
world that Calvin Coolidge is among the most ap- 
proachable, communicative occupants of the big 
chair that have sat there these many years. 

Americans like to know everything there is to 
know about their President. Then they usually 
judge him on three points: his broad, general abil- 
ity as an executive; his readiness to understand and 
help great groups of citizens; his capacity as a good 
mixer. And they are in a measure as joyous at his 
proficiency in the last as they are soberly satisfied 
with his possession of the first or his activity in the 
second. 

This country is going to see Calvin Coolidge give 
brilliant demonstration of his executive wisdom. 
It is going to see him display a knowledge of and 
sympathy with the sectional needs of his great bail- 
iwick that were ingrained in him and conspicuously 
employed during his experience as leader of a great 
commonwealth. 

His rating as a good mixer, on today's basis of 
popular estimating, is probably below par. But any- 
one who choses for that reason to look askance at 
Calvin Coolidge's qualifications would better look 
twice and think hard before he does so. 



15 



HAVE FAITH IN COOLIDGE! 

M m 

A President in the Making 

An able press has hastened to record with almost 
the fulness and accuracy of seasoned history the life 
and acts of Calvin Coolidge. They commence with 
that July Fourth, fifty-one years ago, when he first 
saw the light in a little room at the rear of his 
father's general store in Plymouth Notch, Vermont. 

The chronicle runs through his rather uneventful 
boyhood on the farm and his not conspicuous career 
as a country lawyer; then reaches the era of Cool- 
idge's public life — starting with his becoming Re- 
publican city committeeman in Northampton. It 
traces his performance all the way through the state 
organization up to the Governor's chair, touches on 
his succeeding service as presiding officer of the 
National Senate — and concludes with his unex- 
pected elevation to the Presidency. 

Viewed in comparison with the careers of other 
public men who have ascended to the chief magis- 
tracy or to even lesser heights, Calvin Coolidge' s 
environments and experiences in service are not the 
most showy on record. But, accurately analyzed, 
they disclose the evidences of his peculiar fitness for 
supreme leadership. 

To support New England's belief that the rest of 
the world will now do well to have faith in Calvin 
Coolidge it is necessary only to connect a few high 
spots in his life with his motives and acts at those 
times. These disclose the type of man who has so 
tranquilly assumed the heaviest burden now borne 
by any executive anywhere in the world. 

f 16 ] 



HAVE FAITH IN COOLIDGE! 

As a small boy he developed a fondness for at- 
tending the town meetings over which his father 
presided as moderator for many years. Peg this, be- 
cause it marked Calvin Coolidge's introduction to 
government — orderly and disorderly. This, plus his 
typically solid legal training and habits of keen 
analysis, gave him an excellent groundwork for his 
knowledge of men when assembled for collective 
action. 

The kind of a youth who could win a gold medal 
for writing an essay on American history and then 
tuck it away without exhibiting it to his family, to 
escape the risk of being thought boastful, has un- 
usual and detached powers of self-restraint. Cool- 
idge did this. 

Which brings to mind the laconic remark of a raw 
Western farmer who heard Coolidge make a speech 
from the tail end of a railroad train in the last 
national campaign, in which the modest candidate 
talked about everything and everybody but himself: 

"Wa-a-al, Cal don't blow none!" 

Rich, indeed, is the record of Calvin Coolidge's 
progress through the political and legislative life of 
Massachusetts. As people turn to review it today 
they are moved to marvel that, notable as they esti- 
mated it at the time, they did not appraise it even 
higher. 

Being a farmer — and a good one — before he was a 
lawyer, he came to have a finger in substantially every 
piece of good agricultural legislation that came up at 
the Massachusetts State House after his arrival there. 

[ 17 ] 



& HAVE FAITH IN COOLIDGE! j§> 

m £3 

Let farm "blocs" take notice. "Dirt" farmers 
have nothing on Calvin Coolidge! 

Not yet have Massachusetts political circles for- 
gotten how, as chairman of the state committee on 
agriculture, Coolidge metaphorically sweat blood 
in the interest of a certain historic measure cal- 
culated to benefit Massachusetts farmers sanely — 
and then, when defeated, turned loose the power of 
his personal influence and put the crusher on a flock 
of competitive bills that Massachusetts farmers had 
adjudged impracticable. 

A sizable part of Coolidge's remarkable equip- 
ment for his duties today is his experience, both as 
legislator and Governor, with the profusion of 
labor, agricultural, social and welfare issues that 
happened to sweep through the Massachusetts 
State House during his official presence there. 

Scores of the laws that now compose Massachu- 
setts' far-famed policies on industrial and business 
equity and human relations, including soldiers' wel- 
fare, either bear the marks of Calvin Coolidge's 
handiwork while in the ranks or his signature as 
chief magistrate. 

Let workingmen and working women and vet- 
erans of the wars and business people everywhere 
take notice of that, too ! 

And it is well to remember this: During all the 
period of his public life in Massachusetts, from his 
first election to the House in 1907, through his serv- 
ice in the Senate, his three-year service period as 
Lieutenant-Governor and two-year incumbency of 

[ 18 ] 



§> HAVE FAITH IN COOLIDGE! W 

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the Governor's chair, ending in 192.0, the public and 
even his stoutest political opponents have never had 
other than highest respect for Calvin Coolidge's 
soundness in statesmanship, courage in action and 
fair play in every public and private relation. 

He bears the reputation of never having broken a 
promise. There is in Boston today an old newspaper 
man who has not yet ceased to marvel that at the 
moment when the official committee was ushered 
into Coolidge's office at the State House to escort 
him to the final ceremony of his gubernatorial retire- 
ment, he kept the gorgeous delegation waiting three 
minutes while he carefully read and signed a certain 
letter he had promised to have ready at that time for 
the newspaper man. 



i&? 



When Decisiveness Made History 

To Coolidge the handling of the now-famous 
Boston police strike was all in the day's work. He 
merely saw no other course to follow than the one he 
did follow. Privately he rather suspected it might 
spell his political finale, but this aspect of it could 
not have weight with him. 

He anticipated no public acclaim, no historic per- 
manence in the electrifying sentence embodied in his 
telegram to Samuel Gompers : 

" . . . There is no right to strike against the 
-public safety by anybody, anyivhere, anytime." 

[ 19 ] 



m HAVE FAITH IN COOLIDGE! If 

eb m 

In reality it was the axiomatic expression of a 
conviction springing from a highly-trained mind 
that was concentrated at that moment on an enor- 
mously vital principle of government. 

So, too, his "Have Faith in Massachusetts" 
speech to the Bay State Senate, in accepting its 
chairmanship, and his short "Do the Day's Work" 
address on a similar occasion later, were natural re- 
sults of his instinctive ability in impressive diction. 
His senatorial appeal for brevity, on still another 
like occasion, ranks high for its epigrammatic value : 

Honorable Senators, my sincere st thanks I 
offer you. Conserve the firm foundation of our 
institutions . Do your work with the spirit of 
a soldier in the public service. Be loyal to the 
Commomvealth and to yourselves. And be brief 
— above all things, be brief. 

Those citizens who in today's great encounter 
with domestic and world-wide issues are praying 
for wise action in the Congress and the White House 
may take comfort from this utterance by Coolidge 
to the Massachusetts Senate: 

. . . Don t hurry to legislate. Give adminis- 
tration a chance to catch up ivith legislation. 

Or from these: 

Industry cannot flourish if labor languishes. 

Suspension of one man s profits is suspension 
of another man s pay envelope. 

No one man is qualified to dictate to a great 
nation. 

I 2.0 ] 



HAVE FAITH IN COOLIDGE! 



And if anyone should be tempted to question 
Calvin Coolidge's courage or decisiveness, let him 
recall that at the moment when a delegation of some 
of Massachusetts' most influential citizens were 
calling on him, to induce him to modify his pro- 
posed drastic action in the Boston policemen's strike, 
he gazed silently into their faces, then lifted his 
pen and signed the now-famous Law and Order 
proclamation. 



Is "Cal " Humorous 7 . 

Is Coolidge devoid of a sense of humor? 

This grave question needs examination. It may be 
he hasn't any fun in him. At any rate, he is not bois- 
terous. He does not chortle. Unlike Abe Lincoln, 
Coolidge rarely if ever tells a funny story. Unlike 
Roosevelt, he pokes little or no fun at his associates. 
He has been known not to smile broadly for days at 
a stretch— in public. Smart, subtle sallies have often 
been shot at him without eliciting even a solitary 
guffaw. 

But let's see. What would you say of a college 
youth who grew sadly weary of the interminable 
daily hash at his boarding house, and who, before 
attacking the conventional and mysterious mixture 
one day, looked suspiciously about him, then into 
the unfriendly eyes of the servant girl, and slyly 
asked: 

"Maria, where's Fido?" 

"In the kitchen, Cal." 



pi HAVE FAITH IN COOLIDGE! @ 

32 m 

"Call him in. I want to see him!" 

"Here he is, Cal." 

"Ah! All right, Maria." 

Was it cold, serious information that Chairman 
Coolidge once imparted to an irate Massachusetts 
senator when, on receiving an official complaint 
from the said irate statesman that a hostile col- 
league had in debate consigned him to a certain 
torrid locality, Coolidge announced soothingly: 
"I've looked up the law, Senator, and you don't 
have to go there"? 

Was he wholly serious when, in answer to a 
charming lady's timid query as to his favorite 
hobby, he replied, with a twinkle in his eyes: 

"Running for office, I guess." 

Just how chronically sombre is the temperament 
of the man who has over the fireplace in the living 
room at his Northampton home this framed motto : 

A wise old owl sat on an oak, 
The more he saw, the less he spoke. 

The less he spoke, the more he heard. 

Why cant we all be like that bird! 

But let an anxious constituency be comforted : Cal 
Coolidge has humor! Those close to him — and there 
are several such — aver of their own knowledge that 
he is possessed of a normal sense of fun. The point 
is, he uses it advisedly, not at all publicly — and only 
when in the Coolidge judgment it is appropriate. 



HAVE FAITH IN COOLIDGE! 



Who Made Him President ? 

If anyone proclaims Calvin Coolidge a "child of 
destiny," let us be earnestly thankful to Destiny. 

A judge out in Oregon can be said to have started 
Coolidge on his way to the presidency, by precip- 
itating his landslide selection as the vice-presiden- 
tial nominee at Chicago. Shall Judge MacCammant 
therefore be hailed now as the president-maker? 

Or shall it be the people of Massachusetts, who 
happened to have Coolidge in the Governor's office 
when the police strike came up? 

Or must we give the credit to the firm of old law- 
yers up in Northampton, Mass., who gave him the 
law training that first focused local attention on the 
young man? 

Or, shall we not admit and enjoy admitting the 
truth, which is that Colonel John C. Coolidge and 
his sainted wife, who brought Calvin Coolidge into 
the world and endowed him with an unusual brain 
and certain moral qualities, are in this case the real 
president-makers; and that, being thus endowed, 
Calvin Coolidge thereafter sought the ways of truth 
and substantial self-development, so that when the 
call came, through whatever devious circumstances, 
he was equipped and ready? 

For that is the whole fact of it. 

There is an old and wise saying that none but an 
able man will ever reach the White House. In the 
final analysis it is Coolidge's sound character and 
ability, as disclosed to the American people them- 

[ *-3 1 



HAVE FAITH IX C O O L I D G E ' : : ' 

:S* 



selves, that placed him in the avenue of direct suc- 
cession to the presidency. 



Of himself Mr. Coolidge said, not so very long ago : 

I have no idea why I have been successful in 
politics. Certainly I have no secret about it. 
It has seemed to come naturally that people 
have desired me to perform certain public func- 
, tzons, which I have undertaken to do. I have 
felt a personal obligation to give the public the 
best that I have. 

Calvin Coolidge's future is in the hands of God 
the American people and himself. He will broaden a 
little in every direction every dav he sits in the White 
House. Governmental storms, 'if they should come 
will not shake him. His remarkable ability to judge 
the future effect of legislation will be a revelation to 
the nation. 

He is magnificently trained for his post, and his 
hands are free. 



14 I 



OF THIS BOOK 

FIFTEEN HUNDRED COPIES WERE PRINTED, 

OF WHICH TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY 

ARE A LIMITED NUMBERED 

EDITION 



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